National Entertainment Collectibles Association and Halo developers 343 Industries announced a deal to create a series of Halo-branded merchandise way back in late 2013. One of the most interesting parts of the deal was a motorcycle helmet inspired by the iconic helmet worn by series protagonist Master Chief.

While pricing and the exact date have not been disclosed, NECA has finally revealed that it will be shipping in July of this year. They also have some early shots of the helmet on its official website (link below).

Bohemia Interactive liked a fan-made 2D demake of Day Z so much that it is now hosting it on their official web site. The free fan-made DayZ tribute called MiniDayZ "demakes" Bohemia's popular survival sandbox as a top-down 2D experience with retro-style graphics and single-player gameplay (the game doesn't feature multiplayer like Day Z).

MiniDayZ was created by a Russian DayZ fan who goes by the online name of CannedBits. He (or she) has been developing the project since the spring and managed to get the attention of DayZ creator Dean "Rocket" Hall.

In a nifty cross-over, Sackboy from Little Big Planet will be making his way to Costume Quest 2, publisher Midnight City announced today. Sackboy will be available in the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 versions of the game as a "hidden bonus." To find it, PS3 and PS4 players must seek out the four costume pieces to assemble this legendary ensemble.

A new game from the BBC and BBC Doctor Who Interactive hopes to use the popular sci-fi television icon to teach young people how to program. The game, "The Doctor and the Dalek," was being designed to help children learn some basic programming skills. The game is set to launch on Oct. 22, and features voice narration from current Doctor Peter Capaldi, and a new story by Phil Ford, who has written for the TV show.

A new deal between Mojang, BBC, and Microsoft Studios will bring a number of Doctor Who-themed characters and assets to the Xbox 360 version of Minecraft. The content will come as part of several DLC skin packs for the game (yes, you'll have to buy them).

"We’re constantly looking for new and innovative ways to bring Doctor Who content to our loyal fans," Digital Entertainment and Games Director at BBC Worldwide UK Rikesh Desai said.

During a recent Hack Day - as chronicled in this blog post - engineers at Netflix mange to design a prototype Oculus Rift user interface for its popular streaming service. The specially designed UI that makes this possible is being called "Oculix" and lets users control the Netflix menu using hand and head gesture controls.

Playing off the monumental popularity of "Twitch Plays Pokémon," a new live streaming channel has emerged involving a fish playing Pokémon. The stream, "Fish Plays Pokémon" has been running for more than 130 hours on Twitch. In that time a fish named Grayson Hopper has named a Charmander and beaten Squirtle (among other things) in a game of Pokémon Red.

Tired of being associated with the Xbox brand, the makers of XBMC will be changing the name of their flagship product to "Kodi." The name change will occur officially with the launch of the next update - version 14.

XBMC is an open-sourced media center and playback app project originally launched in 2002 as a way to simplify media playback on the original Xbox. Over the years the software has evolved to support media management and playback services on a number of platforms including Windows, OS X, Linux, Apple TV and Android.

The world's largest video game collection - as certified by Guinness Book of World Records - has been sold for roughly $750,000. Or rather, the winning bid for the collection of between 10,607 to 12,000 games was $750,250. Earlier in the month Buffalo, New York resident Michael Thommason put his massive collection of games up for sale on GameGavel.

Square Enix has confirmed that it plans to bring its classic RPG Final Fantasy 3 to PC platforms via Steam sometime this year.

Square Enix says that the new game will feature new and improved story sequences and 3D graphics, optimized browsing of in-game information such as the monster bestiary and other game records, new visual designs for the Job Mastery Cards, and generally upgraded graphics. Besides the cosmetic changes and the control optimizations for the PC, Final Fantasy 3 will be an identical experience to what has already been released on consoles and hand-helds.

Some great news for fans of Terraria on the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3; you'll finally get almost all of the content that PC players have been enjoying for almost a year contained in the 1.2 update.

The update dramatically changes the game by adding new ores, enemies, weapons, crafting recipes, new bosses, new NPCs, new biomes, 1,000 new items, and lots of tweaks to gameplay and fixes. The update will also be applied to the PS Vita version the games. All of this new content will be rolled out in a title update on April 17.

Infocom co-founder Dave Lebling will be giving a (long overdue?) postmortem talk on the classic text adventure Zork at GDC 2014. Lebling, who currently works as a Senior Principal Engineer at BAE Systems, created the "grue" and co-authored Zork I-III, as well as several other classic text adventures.

World of Tanks and World of War Planes maker Wargaming announced today the global launch of an augmented reality application that draws attention to the Dornier 17 aircraft currently being exhibited at the RAF Museum in Cosford, Shropshire, United Kingdom.

Developer Bohemia Interactive recently revealed that more than 400,000 people have put down their hard-earned money to buy DayZ during its first week on Steam Early Access. The game, which began its life as a mod for Arma 2, was released on December 16.

While some people who might not otherwise be interested in a game like DayZ are taking note because of its popularity, Bohemia Interactive is warning potential customers that the game they are thinking about buying early is not finished and still contains a lot of bugs.

Here's a success story to inspire anyone who wants to make the leap from hobbyist mod maker to full-fledged developer: it's possible if you put love into your creation and catch someone's attention. Alexander J. Velicky, the fellow who created the popular Falskaar mod for Elder Scrolls IC: Skyrim, is now working for a big studio - and it isn't Bethesda.

Posting on the official Skyrim forums to thank everyone, Velicky revealed that he has been hired by Bungie - apparently to help out on the company's upcoming next-gen game Destiny.

Operation Supply Drop has raised nearly $300,000 in games and gear for Veterans Day through its 8-Bit Salute drive. The military gaming charity surpassed last year's $58,000 in games and gear raised by over five times with the grand total of $282,721. Donations are still coming in, so that figure is sure to continue trending upwards. The donations will be sent out as a part of Operation Supply Drop's end-of-the-year 8-Bit Salute fundraising drive to build video game care packages for soldiers deployed to combat zones and recovering in military hospitals.

Rain Blood Chronicles: Mirage has launched on Steam this week and is discounted to $9.99 until Nov. 18. This particular game is unique because it is one of the few games imported from China that isn't a free-to-play MMO game. Developed by ORiGO GAMES, Mirage is a "Wuxia" (which means "Martial Hero") story that pays homage to a broad genre of Chinese fiction concerning the adventures of martial artists.

505 Games has spruced up the console and mobile versions of the hit PC game Terraria. The company, which publishes the iOS, Android, Xbox 360 and PS3 versions of the game, announced updates for all versions of the game in one way or another. iOS and Android Terraria owners can now play against each other or cooperatively thanks to Wi-Fi multiplayer support for up to four players. This update also includes code fixes and the ability to directly drop items into the world from the inventory bar.

In the latest issue of The Advocate, Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald talks about his work on unearthing the massive domestic surveillance programs run by the Nation Security Agency and how it has affected his and his husband David Miranda's life.

More importantly (for us at least), the article reveals what inspired former NSA contractor turned whistleblower Edward Snowden (now exiled in Moscow) to reveal information on the NSA's questionable activities.

Want to class up that video game collection? Well New York City-based Etsy store Jamesbit may have an item that you'll find particularly useful. JamesBit sells custom covers for video games that look like classic novels. You could use these covers to class up your pad or to hide your video game collection in plain sight from people in your life who disapprove of games (like out of touch relatives).

There's a common perception that the Supreme Court justices rely too heavily on the opinions of their younger staffers when it comes to technology. But a story on Talking Points Memo reveals that at least some of the justices are trying a bit harder to learn things on their own - particularly when it comes to technology that is completely foreign to them.

Ryan Green announced that his game about the trials and tribulations of raising a child suffering from cancer is launching exclusively on the OUYA in 2014. Green says that he chose to launch That Dragon, Cancer exclusively on the Android-based platform because the platform holder has pledged to help with development costs and ensure that the game gets made.

Researchers from North Carolina State University are using cockroaches and Microsoft's Kinect sensor for an experiment that allows them to drive the little insects around. Using Microsoft's motion-sensing Kinect technology and some electronics, they've figured out how to control a cockroach in real life.

The team of scientists working on this bizarre project hope that a remote-controlled cockroach could one day be used in disaster search-and-rescue scenarios, such as mapping out a collapsed building or finding survivors.

While Xbox 360 fans fret over possible used game licensing fees and a console that may or may not require you to always be connected with Xbox One, Sony fans have taken to twitter to bombard Sony executives. Recently fans took to Twitter to urge Sony not to use those same techniques for the upcoming PlayStation 4 console.

Using the hashtags #PS4NoDRM and #PS4USEDGAMES, consumers have sent messages to Sony executives pleading with them not to implement any kind of usage restrictions on the PS4.

An office prank to replace a framed picture of a scantily-clad female Hawken character with a scantily clad male character in the office of the CEO of Hawken publisher Meteor Entertainment has a surprising result. The prank, detailed over at The Hawkeye Initiative, explains how some Meteor Entertainment employees decided to replace a picture of a female character with a male character.

Here's something you won't see every day: a video showing what a LEGO game version of AMC's hit series about making meth - Breaking Bad - might look like. The parody video created by animator Brian Anderson mixes the popular show's plot and characters with the humor of a LEGO video game with amusing results. On the YouTube page for his video, Anderson offers the following disclaimer:

Over the weekend, a Philadelphia skyscraper was transformed into the world’s largest video game by a Drexel University professor who used the building’s lighting system to display a working version of Pong.

Game Informer has a nifty little video of a recent meeting with Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, who they ran into while in Montreal to cover the new Thief game. After bumping in to Wozniak, GI managed to convince him to do an interview. But the interview isn't the most interesting part of the story. Apparently Wozniak holds the high score in Nintendo Power magazine for Tetris on the original Game Boy.

If you like free things then you may want to get in on this action. From now until March 31 you can play the beta version of Desktop Dungeons for free simply by signing up here and proving that you are not some sort of filthy robot (no offense to filthy robots out there).

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ZippyDSMlee: .....win8 hates any left over hidden install partitions from other version of windows....only waste 5 hours finding that out...its ahrder than you think keeping up with 4 or 5 HDDS......03/03/2015 - 4:44am

Matthew Wilson: I am going to pax east, any games you guys want me to check out?03/02/2015 - 11:23pm

ZippyDSMlee: No one remembers the days of Cinemagic and Cynergy eh? :P, meh even MGS is getting to film like....03/02/2015 - 8:44pm

MechaTama31: I was about to get all defensive about liking Metal Gear Solid, but then I saw that he was talking about "cinematic" as a euphemism for "crappy framerate".03/02/2015 - 8:29pm

prh99: Just replace cinematic with the appropriate synonym for poo and you'll have gist of any press release.03/02/2015 - 5:34pm

Monte: Though from a business side, i would agree with the article. While it would be smarter for developers to slow down, you can't expect EA, Activision or ubisoft to do something like that. Nintnedo's gotta get the third party back.02/28/2015 - 4:36pm

Monte: Though it does also help that nintendo's more colorful style is a lot less reliant on graphics than more realistic games. Wind Waker is over 10 years old and still looks good for its age.02/28/2015 - 4:33pm

Monte: With the Wii, nintnedo had the right idea. Hold back on shiny graphics and focus on the gameplay experience. Unfortunatly everyone else keeps pushing for newer graphics and it matters less and less each generation. I can barely notice the difference02/28/2015 - 4:29pm

Monte: ON third party developers; i kinda think they should slow down to nintendo's pace. They bemoan the rising costs of AAA gaming, but then constantly push for the best graphics which is makes up a lot of those costs. Be easier to afford if they held back02/28/2015 - 4:27pm

Matthew Wilson: http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2015/02/28/the-world-is-nintendos-if-only-theyd-take-it/ I think this is a interesting op-ed, but yeah it kind of is stating the obvious.02/28/2015 - 2:52pm